Stay
by xxToxicMemoryxx
Summary: If I stay. If I live. It's up to me. I decide. I know this now. And this terrifies me more than anything else that has happened today. :OneShot: R


**Yuki- Okay, okay. I know what you guys are thinking. "Why the hell is this bitch putting up a one-shot when she needs to update on her other stories?"**

**Well. I had some inspiration, and I had to get it out there... **

**So please Enjoy.**

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**I don't own Shugo Chara! in any way.****  
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**:Stay:**

It all started as an ordinary morning.

Then the next thing I know...

It happened.

We were taking a family drive. Me, my sister Ami, my mom, and dad. It was normal. As usual, there was the battle for radio dominance. Mom wants Train. Dad wants Frank Sinatra. Ami wants the kids channel.

As always, Ami goes first. Then mom. Then dad. Then I gladly take last. I don't mind because if I'm last, my selection lasts longer.

When dads music turn was over, they turn to the classical music station. I get completely obsorbed into the music, that I sometimes don't know what's happening around me.

I play the violin. It's been my calling since third grade. I was somewhat noticed as an outsider in my family. Though no one has spoken it out loud, I know that they see it too. I have pink hair, and they all have brown hair. Of course, it's different.

I concentrate on the notes, imagining myself playing, feeling grateful for this chance to practice, happy to be in a warm car with my violin and my family. I close my eyes.

You wouldn't expect the radio to work afterward. But it does.

The car is eviscerated, The impact of a four-ton pickup truck going sixty miles an hour plowing staright into the passenger side had the force of an atom bomb. It tore off the doors, sent the front-side passenger seat through the driver's side window. It flipped the chassis, bouncing it across the road and ripped the engine apart as if it were no stronger than a spiderweb. It tossed wheels and hubcaps deep into the forest. It ignited bits of the gas tank, so that now tiny flames lap at the wet road.

And there was so much noise. A symphony of grinding, a chorus of popping, and aria of exploding, and finally the sad clapping of hard metal cutting into soft trees. Then it went quiet, except for this: The violin, stilling playing. The car radio somehow still is attached to a battery and so the violin is broadcasting into the once again tranquil February morning.

Next thing I know, I'm at the hospital. My parents are dead, and Ami only had a few scratches.

How do I know this?

Somehow, a phantom of myself can see everything. My body is in the ICU, and it's as if my soul is wandering. I'm not a ghost. I have all the ablilties of a normal human, except that what I do is invisible to everyone else.

My family showed up. My grandma, grandpa, aunts, and uncles of both sides. Cousins. Everyone. Even my best friend Rima.

After the sugery, and taking me to the ICU, my grandparents are the first to see me. The nurse sends them in. "Amu, your grandparents are here." She motions them to sit down. "I'll leave you alone now."

"Can she hear us?" my grandmother asks. "If we talk to her, she'll understand?"

"Truly, I don't know." the nurse responds. "But your presence can be soothing so long as your words are." Then she gives them a stern look, as if to tell them not to say anything bad to upset me. I know it's her job to warn them about things like this and that she's busy with a thousand things and can't always be so sensitive, but for a second, I hate her.

After the social worker leaves, my grandparents sit in silence for a minute. Then grandma starts talking about her garden, and her greenhouse. Granpa is sitting very still, and his hands are shaking. He's not much of a talker, so it must be hard for him being ordered to chat with me now.

Another nurse walks by. She's not my nurse, but she comes up to my grandparents just the same. "Don't you doubt for a second that she can hear you," she tells them. "She's aware of everything that's going on." She stands there with her hands on her hips. I can almost picture her snapping gum.

"You might think that the doctors and nurses are running this show." she says gesturing to the wall of medical equipment. "Nope._ She's _the one running the show. Maybe she's just biding her time. So you talk to her. You tell her to take all the time she needs, but to come on back. You're waiting for her."

I'm a little freaked out right now. My grandparents left a while ago, but I stayed behind here in the ICU. I'm sitting in one of the chairs, going over their conversation, which was very nice and normal and nondisturbing. Until they left. As my grandparents walked out of the ICU, with me following, Grandpa turned to my grandmother and asked: "Do you think she decides?"

"Decides what?"

Grandpa looked uncomfortable. He shuffled his feet. "You know? Decides." he whisperd.

"What are you talking about?" my grandmother sounded exasperated and tender at the same time.

"I don't know what I'm talking about. You're the one who believes in all the angels."

"What does that have to do with Amu?" she asks.

"If they're gone now, but still here, like you believe, what if they want her to join them? What if she wants to join them?"

"It doesn't work like that." my grandmother snapped.

"Oh," was all my grandfather let out. The inquiry was over.

My parents aren't here. They're not holding my hand, or cheering me on. I know them well enough to know that if they could, they would. Maybe not both of them. Maybe mama would stay with Ami while Papa watched over me. But neither of them is here.

And it's while contemplating this that I know about what the nurse said. _She's running the show. _And suddenly I understand what Grandpa was really asking her. He had listened to that nurse, too. He got it before I did.

If I stay. If I live. It's up to me.

How am I supposed to decide this? How can I stay without Mama and Papa? How can I leave without Ami? Or Ikuto? This is too much. I don't even understand how it all works, why I'm here in the state that I'm in or how to get out of it if I wanted to. If I were to say, _I wanna wake up_, would I wake up right now? This seems a whole lot more complicated.

But in spite of that, I believe it's true. I hear the nurse's words again. I'm running the show. Everyone's waiting on me.

_I _decide. I know this now.

And this terrifies me more than anything else that has happened today.

**:Stay:**

Everyone's here, except one important person.

My boyfriend, Ikuto. I miss him.

The punk rocker. It's hard to believe that such a perfect, cool, rebel teenage boy would fall for a normal average teenage girl like me. He tells me that he loves the way I'm into music, and that's what brought us together. Our love for the same thing. Sure our tastes are different, but it's still music.

How will he know what happened? Does he know that I'm here in Okinawa, the place where he's performing a show with his band?

Where the hell is he?

**:Stay:**

A week before Halloween of my junior year, Ikuto showed up at my door triumphant. He was holding a dress bag and wearing a perfect grin.

"Prepare to writhe in jealousy. I just got the best costume." he said. He unzipped the bag. Inside was a frilly white shirt, a pair of breeches, and a long wool coat with epaulets.

"You're gonna be Seinfeld with a puffy shirt?" I asked.

"Pff. _Seinfeld. _And you call yourself a classical musician. I'm going to be Mozart. Wait, you haven't seen the shoes." He reached into the bag and pulled out clunky black leather numbers with metal bars across the tops.

"Nice," I said. "I think my mom has a pair like them."

"You're just jealous because you don't have such a rockin' costume. And I'll be wearing tights, too. I'm just that secure in my manhood. Also, I have a wig."

"Where'd you get all this?" I asked, fingering the wig. It felt like it was made of burlap.

"Online. It was only a hundred bucks."

"You spent a hundred dollars on a Halloween costume?"

At the mention of the word, Halloween, Ami zoomed down the stairs, ignoring me and yanking onto Ikuto's wallet chain. "Wait here!" she demanded, and then ran back upstairs and returned a few seconds later holding a bag. "Is this a good costume? Or will it make me look babyish?" Ami asked, pulling out a pitchfork, a set of devil ears, a red tail, and a pair of red feetie pajamas.

I wanted Ami to be an angel, but she just wasn't up for it.

"Ohh." Ikuto stepped backward, his eyes wide. "That outfit scares the hell out of me and you aren't even wearing it."

"Really? You don't think the pajamas make it look dumb. I don't want anyone to laugh at me." Ami declared, her eyebrows furrowed in seriousness.

I grinned at Ikuto, who was trying to swallow his smile. "Red pajamas plus pitchfork plus devil ears and pointy tail is so fully satanic no one would dare challenge you, lest they risk eternal damnation." Ikuto assured her.

Ami's face broke into a wide grin, showing off the gap of her missing front tooth. "That's kind of what Mama said, but I just wanted to make sure she wasn't just telling me that so I wouldn't bug her about the costume. You're taking me trick-or-treating, right?" She looked at me now.

"Just like every year," I answered. "How else am I gonna get candy?"

"You're coming too?" she asked Ikuto.

"I wouldn't miss it."

Ami turned on her heel and whizzed back up the stairs. Ikuto turned to me. "That's Ami settled. What are you wearing?"

"Ahh, I'm not much of a costume girl."

Ikuto rolled his sapphire eyes. "Well, become one. It's Halloween, our first one together. The band has a big show that night. It's a costume concert, and you promised to go."

Inwardly, I groaned. After six months with Ikuto, I just gotten used to us being the odd couple at school. And I was starting to become more comfortable with Ikuto's bandmates. I could hold my own now when Ikuto took me to the Rock Out Tokyo, the rambling house near the college where the rest of the band all lived.

But I still hated the shows and hated myself for hating them. The clubs were smoky, which hurt my eyes and made my clothes stink. The speakers were always turned up so high that the music blared, causing my ears to ring so loudly afterward that the high-pitched drone would actually keep me up. I'd lie in bed, replaying the awkward night and feeling shittier about it each playback.

"Don't tell me you're gonna back out." Ikuto said, looking equal parts of hurt and irritated.

"What about Ami? We promised we'd take her trick-or-treating-"

"Yeah, at five o'clock. We don't have to be at the show til ten. I doubt even Mistress Ami could trick-or-treat for five solid hours. So you have no excuse. And you'd better get a good outfit together because I'm gonna look hot, in an eighteenth-century kind of way."

After Ikuto left to do some work for his father, I had a pit in my stomach. I went upstairs to practice the violin that was assigned to me, and to work out what was bothering me. Why didn't I like his shows? Was it because the band was getting popular and I was jealous? Did the ever-growing masses of girl groupies put me off? This seemed like a logical explanation, but it wasn't it.

After about ten minutes of playing, it came to me: My aversion to Ikuto's shows had nothing to do with music or groupies or envy. It had to do with the doubts. The same niggling doubts I always had about not belonging. I didn't feel like I belonged with my family, and now I didn't feel like I belonged with Ikuto, except unlike my family, who was stuck with me, Ikuto chose me, and this I didn't understand. Why did he fall for _me_? It didn't make sense. I knew it was music that brought us together in the first place, put us in the same space so we could even get to know each other. And I knew that Ikuto liked how into music I was. And that he liked my sense of humor, "so light you almost miss it," he said. And speaking of light, I knew he had a thing for light-haired girls because all of his girlfriends were as such. And I knew that when it was the two of us alone together, we could talk for hours, or sit reading side by side for hours, each one plugged into our own iPod and still feel completely together. I understood that all in my head, but I didn't believe it in my heart. When I was with Ikuto, I felt picked, chosen, special, and that just made me wonder _why me_? even more.

And maybe this was why even though Ikuto willingly came to any recital I gave, bringing me blue roses, my favorite flower, I'd still rather have gone to the dentist than to one of his shows. Which was so churlish to me. I thought of what Mama sometimes said to me when I was feeling insecure: "Fake it till you make it." By the time I finished playing the piece three times over, I decided that not only would I go to his show, but for once I'd make much of an effort to understand his world as he did mine.

I asked my mom for help. She was always the punk rocker chick in her time, so asking her for some assistance was a no brainer. She helped me with my costume.

Leather jacket. Short black jean shorts. Fish nets. High heels boots. Everything needed for the ideal punk rock chick.

And it worked.

When Ikuto saw my outfit on Halloween night, I thought that he was gonna have his eyes pop out of his head. But I was wrong. All he did was make his trademark smirk, and said, "Nice costume."

When we made it to the concert, I tried to make myself feel comfortable. A girl even wanted to dance with me, while the band performed, so I did. I actually had a lot of fun, and I let loose.

When Ikuto finished his set, I was as panting and sweaty as he was. I didn't go backstage to greet him before everyone else got to him. I waited for him to go to the floor of the club, to meet his public like he did at the end of every show. And when he came out, a towel around his neck, sucking on a bottle of water, I flung myself into his arms and kissed him openmouthed and sloppy in front of everyone. I could feel him smiling as he kissed me back.

On the way home, Ikuto held my hand while he drove. Every so often he'd turn to look at me and smile while shaking his head.

"So you like me like this?" I asked.

"Hmm," he responded.

"Is that a yes or no?"

"Of course I like you."

"No, like this. Did you like me tonight?"

Ikuto straightened up. "I liked that you got into the show and weren't chomping to leave ASAP. And I loved dancing with you. And I loved how comfortable you seemed with all this riffraff."

"But did you like me like this? Like me better?"

"Than what?" he asked. He look genuinely confused.

"Than normal." I was getting irritated now.

He seeemed to sense that I was upset. He pulled that car off onto a logging road and turned to me. "Amu, Amu, Amu," he said, stroking my hair. "This _is _the you I like. You definitley dressed sexier, and that's different. But the you who you are tonight is the same you I was in love with yesterday, the same you I'll be in love with tomorrow. I love that you're fragile and tough, quiet and kick-ass. Hell, you're on of the punkest girls I know, no matter who you listen to or what you wear."

After that, whenever I started to doubt Ikuto's feelings, I'd think about my costume, gathering dust in my closet, and it would bring back the memory of that night. And then I wouldn't feel insecure. I'd just feel lucky.

**:Stay:**

He's here.

I've been hanging out in an empty hospital room in the maternity ward, wanting to be far away from my relatives and even farther away from the ICU. I needed to be somewhere where people wouldn't be sad, where the thoughts concerned life, not death. So I came here, the land of screaming babies. Actually, the wail of the newborns is comforting. They have so much fight in them already.

But it's quiet in this room now. So I'm sitting on the windowsill, staring out at the night. A car screeches into the parking garage, shaking me out of my reverie. I peer down in time to cath a glimpse of the taillights of a pink car disappear into the darkness. Utau, who is the girlfriend of Kukai, the bands drummer, has a pink car. I hold my breath, waiting for Ikuto to appear out of the tunnel. And he's here, walking up the ramp, hugging his leather jacket against the winter night. I can see the chain of his wallet glinting in the floodlights. He stops, turns around to talk to someone behind him. I see the soft figure of a woman emerge from the shadows. At first I think it must be Utau. But then I see a long blond curl.

I wish I could hug her. To thank her for always being one step ahead of what I need.

Of course Rima would go to Ikuto, to tell him in person as opposed to breaking the news over the phone, and then to bring him here, to me. It was Rima who knew Ikuto was playing a show in Okinawa. Rima who must of somehow managed to convince her mother to go home, to let her stay with Ikuto and me. It was Rima who must have braved any number of intimidating bouncers and hipsters to find Ikuto. And Rima who must have been brave enough to tell him.

I know it sounds ridiculous, but I'm glad it wasn't me. I don't think I could have borne it. Rima had to bear it.

And now, because of her, he's finally here.

But now that he's finally here, I'm paralyzed. I'm scared to see him. To see his face. I've seen Ikuto cry once. When we saw a mother yelling and swatting her son who had down syndrome. He just got quiet and it was only when we were walking away that I saw tears rolling down his cheeks. And it damn near tore my heart out. If he's crying, it would _kill _me. Forget this _my choice _business. That alone would do me in.

I watch Ikuto make his way to the hospital's main enterance, Rima trailing behind him. Just before he comes to the covered awning and the automatic doors, he looks up into the sky. He's waiting for Rima but I also like to think that he's looking for me. His face, illuminated by the lights, is blank, like someone vacuumed away all his personality, leaving only a mask. He doesn't look like him. But at least he's not crying.

That gives me the guts to go to him now. Or rather to me, the ICU, which is where I know he'll want to go. Ikuto knows my grandparents and the cousins, and I imagine he'll join the waiting-room vigil later. But right now, he's here for me.

Back in the ICU time stands still as always. One of the surgeons who worked on me earlier is checking in on me.

The light's dim and artificial and kept to the same level all the time, but even so, the circadian rhythms win out and nighttime hush has fallen over the place. It's less frenetic than it was during the day, like the nurses and machines are all a little tired and have reverted to power-save mode.

So when Ikuto's voice reverberates from the hallway outside the ICU, it really wakes everyone up.

"What do you mean I can't go in?" he booms.

I make my way across the ICU, standing just on the other side of the automatic doors. I hear the orderly outside explain to Ikuto that he's not allowed in his part of the hospital.

"This is bullshit!" Ikuto yells.

An old nurse walks in, to see what the problem is. "Can I help you young man?" she asks Ikuto. Her voice sounds irritated and impatient, like some of Papa's colleagues at school who Papa says are just counting the days until retirement.

Ikuto clears his throat, attempting to pull himself together. "I'd like to visit a patient." he says, gesturing toward the doors blocking him from the ICU.

"I'm afraid that's not possible." she replied.

"But my girlfriend, Amu, she's-"

"She's being well cared for." the nurse interrupts. She sounds tired, too tired for sympathy, too tired to be moved by young love.

"I understand that. And I'm grateful for it." Ikuto says. He's trying his best to play by her rules, to sound mature, but I hear the catch in his voice when he says: "I really need to see her."

"I'm sorry young man, but visitations are restricted to immediate family."

I hear Ikuto gasp. _Immediate family. _The nurse doesn't mean to be cruel. She's just clueless, but Ikuto won't know that. I feel the need to protect him and to protect the nurse from what he might do to her. I reach for him, on instinct, even though I can't really touch him. But his back is to me now. His shoulders are hunched over, his legs starting to buckle.

Rima, who was hovering near a wall, is suddenly at his side, her arms encircling his falling body. With both arms locked around his waist, she turns to the nurse, her eyes blazing with fury. "You just don't understand!" she cries.

"Do I need to call security?" the nurse asks.

Ikuto waves his hand, surrendering to the nurse, to Rima. "_Don't,_" he whispers to Rima.

So Rima doesn't. Without saying another word, she hoists his arm around her shoulder and shifts his weight onto her. Ikuto has about a foot and fifty pounds on Rima, but after stumbling for a second, she adjusts to the added burden. She bears it.

**:Stay:**

Rima and I have this theory that almost everything in the world can be divided into two groups.

There are people who like classical music. People who like pop. There are city people. And country people. Coke drinkers. Pepsi drinkers. There are conformists and freethinkers. Virgins and non-virgins. And there are kind of girls who have boyfriends in high school, and the kind of girls who don't.

Rima and I had always assumed that we both belonged to the latter category. "Not that we'll be forty-year-old virgins or anything," she reassured. "We'll just be the kinds of girls who have boyfriends in college."

That always made sense to me, seemed preferable even. Papa was shy until college when he formed a band. Then after a few girlfriends, he married Mama. I kind of figure it would go that way for me.

So, it was a surprise to both Rima and me when I wound up in Group A, with the boyfriended girls. At first, I tried to hide it. After me and Ikuto's first date, I told Rima the vaguest of details. I didn't mention the kissing. I rationalized the omission: There was no point getting all worked up about a kiss. One kiss doesn't make a relationship. I'd kissed boys before, and usually by the next day the kiss had evaporated like a dewdrop in the sun.

Except I knew that with Ikuto it _was _a big deal. I knew from the way the warmth flooded my whole body that night he dropped me off at home, kissing me once more at my doorstep. By the way I stayed up until dawn hugging my pillow. By the way that I coudn't eat the next day, couldn't wipe the smile off my face. I recognized that the kiss was a door I walked through. And I knew that I'd left Rima on the other side.

After a week, and a few more stolen kisses, I had to tell Rima. We went for coffee after school. It was May but it was pouring rain as though it were November.

"I'll buy. You want one of your froufrou drinks?" I asked. That was another one of the categories we'd determined: people who drank plain coffee and people who drank gussied-up caffiene drinks like the mint-chip lattes Rima was so fond of.

"I think I'll try the cinnamon-spice chai latte," she said, giving me a stern look that said, _I will not be ashamed of my beverage selection. _

I bought us our drinks and a piece of cake with two forks. I sat down across from Rima, running the fork along the scalloped edge of the flaky crust.

"I have something to tell you." I said.

"Something about having a boyfriend?" Rima's voice was amused, but even though I was looking down, I could tell that she had rolled her eyes.

"How'd you know?" I asked, meeting her gaze. She rolled her eyes again. "Please. Everyone knows. It's the hottest gossip this side of Yamabuki Saaya dropping out to have a baby. It's like a Democratic presidential candidate marrying a Republic presidential candidate."

"Who said anything about marrying?"

"I'm just being metaphoric," Rima said. "Anyhow, I know. I knew even before you knew."

"Bullshit."

"Come on. A guy like Tsukiyomi Ikuto buying classical music tickets? He was buttering you up."

"It's not like that." I said, though of course, it was totally like that.

"I just don't see why you couldn't tell me sooner." she said in a quiet voice,

I was about to giver her my whole one-kiss-not-equaling-a-relationship spiel and to explain that I didn't want to blow it out of proportion, but I stopped myself.

"I was afraid you'd be mad at me." I admitted.

"I'm not," Rima said. "But I will be if you ever lie to me again."

"Okay." I said.

"Or if you turn into one of those girlfriends, always ponying around after her boyfriend, and speaking in the first-person plural. '_We _love the winter. _We _think Velvet Underground is seminal."

"You know I wouldn't rock-talk to you. First-person singular or plural. I promise."

"Good," Rima replied. "Because if you turn into one of those girls, I'll shoot you."

"If I turn into one of those girls, I'll hand you the gun."

**:Stay:**

Ikuto finally had permission to come see me.

I forced my head up and my eyes open. Ikuto. God, even in this state, he's beautiful. His eyes are dipping with fatigue. He's sprouting stubble, enough of it that if we were to make out, it would make my chin raw. He's wearing his typical band uniform of a T-shirt, skinny jeans, and Converse.

He searches around, like he's dropped something and then he finds what he's looking for: my hand.

"Jesus, Amu, your hands are freezing." He squats down, takes my right hand into his, and careful to not bump into my tubes and wires, draws his mouth to them, blowing warm air into the shelter he's created.

"You and your crazy hands." Ikuto is always amazed at how even in the middle of summer, even after the sweatiest of encounters, my hands stay cold. I tell him it's bad circulation, but he doesn't buy it because my feet are usually warm. He says I have bionic hands, that's why I'm such a good violin player.

I watch him warm my hands as he's done a thousand times before. I think of the first time he did it, at school, sitting on the lawn, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

I wonder if I tried, if I could feel him touching me. If I were to lie down on top of my myself in the bed, would I become one with my body again? Would I feel him then? If I reached out my ghostly hand to his, would he feel me? Would he warm the hands he can't see?

Ikuto drops my hand and steps forward to look at me. He's standing so close that I can almost smell him and I'm overpowered by the need to touch him. It's basic, primal, and all consuming the way a baby needs it's mother's breats. Even though I know, if we touch, a new tug-of-war now that will be even more painful than the quiet one Ikuto and I have been waging these past few months will begin.

Ikuto is mumbling something now. In a low voice. Over and over he's saying: please. _Please. Please. Please. Please. Please. Please. Please. Please.__ Please. _Finally, he stops and looks at my face.

"Please, Amu," he implores. "Don't make me write a song."

**:Stay:**

Ikuto's gone. He suddenly rushed out, calling to Nurse Nadeshiko that he'd forgotten something important and would be back as soon as he could. He was already out the door when she told him that she was about to get off work. In fact, she just left, but not before making sure to inform the nurse who's relieved Old Grumpy that "the young man with the skinny pants and messy hair" is allowed to see me when he gets back.

Now it's Rima's turn. Poor Rima. She looks like she slept in a dumpster. Her hair has staged a full-scale rebellion and more of it has escaped her mangled pony-tail that remains tucked inside.

At first, Rima squints at me, as if I'm a bright glaring light. But then it's like she adjusts to the light and decides that even though I may look like a zombie, even though there are tubes sticking out of every which orfice, even though there's blood on my thin blanket from where it's seeped through the bandages. I'm still Amu and she's still Rima. And what do Amu and Rima like to do more than anything? Talk.

Rima settles into the chair next to my bed. "How are you doing?" she asks.

I'm not sure. I'm exhausted, but at the same time Ikuto's visit has left me... I don't know what. Agitated. Anxious. Awake, definitley awake. Though I couldn't feel it when he touched me, his presence stirred me up anyhow. I was just starting to feel grateful that he was here when he booked out of here like the devil was chasing him. Ikuto has spent the last ten hours trying to get in to see me, and now that he finally succeeded, he left ten minutes after arriving. Maybe I scared him. Maybe he doesn't want to deal. Maybe I'm not the only chickenshit around here. After all, I spent the last day dreaming of him coming to me, and when he finally staggered into the ICU, if I had the strength, I would've run away.

"Well you would not believe the crazy night it's been." Rima says. Then she starts telling me about it.

Of course I know almost everything that Rima's telling me, but there's no way that she'd know that. Besides, I like having her recount the day to me. I know how Rima is talking to me normally, just jabbering on, as if we were together on my porch, drinking coffee (or an iced caramel frappuccino in Rima's case) and catching up.

**:Stay:**

It's morning. I'm waiting for Ikuto to come back. Though it seems like he's been gone for an eternity, it's only been an hour. And he asked me to wait, so I will. That's the least I can do for him.

My eyes are close so I hear him before I see him. I hears the raspy, quick rushes of his lungs. He is panting like he just ran a marathon. Then I smell the sweat on him, a clean musky sweat that I'd bottle and wear as perfume if I could. I open my eyes. Ikuto closed his. But the lids are puffy and pink, so I know what he's been doing. Is that why he went away? To cry without me seeing?

He doesn't so much sit in the chair as fall into it, like clothes heaped onto the floor at the end of the day. He covers his face with his hands and takes deep breaths to steady himself. After a minute, he drops his hands into his lap. "Just listen." he say with a voice that sounds like shrapnel.

I open my eyes wide now. I sit up as much as I can. And I listen.

"Stay."

With that one word, Ikuto's voice catches, but he swallows the emotion and pushes forward.

"There's no word for what happened to you. There's no good side of it. But there _is _something to live for. And I'm not talking about me. It's just... I don't know. Maybe I'm talking shit. I know I'm in shock. I know I haven't digested what happened to your parents, to Ami..."

When he says, Ami, his voice cracks and an avalanche of tears tumbles down his face. And I think: _I love you._

I hear him take a gulpful of air to steady himself. And then he continues: "All I can think about is how fucked up it would be for your life to end here, now. I mean, I know that your life is fucked up no matter what now, forever. And I'm not dumb enough to think that I can undo that, that anyone can. But I can't wrap my mind around the notion of you not getting old, having kids, going to Tokyo, getting to play the violin in front of a huge crowd, so that they can get the chills the way I do every time you pick up your bow, everytime I see you smile at me."

"If you stay, I'll do whatever you want. I'll quit the band, go with you to Tokyo. But if you need me to go away, I'll do that, too. I was talking to Utau and she said maybe coming back to your old life would just be too painful, that maybe it'd be easier for you to erase us. And that would suck, but I'd do it. I can lose you like that if I don't lose you today. I'll let you go. If you can stay."

Then it's Ikuto who lets go. His sobs burst like fist pounding against tender flesh.

I close my eyes. I cover my ears. I can't watch this. I can't hear this.

But then it's not Ikuto that I hear anymore. It's that sound, the low moan that in an instant takes flight and becomes something sweet. It's the violin. Ikuto placed headphones over my life-less ears and is laying an iPod down on my chest. He's apologizing, saying that he knows this isn't my favorite but it was the best he could do. He turns up the volume so I can hear the music floating across the morning air. Then he takes my hand.

There's a blinding flash, a pain that rips through me for one searing instant, a silent scream from my broken body. For the first time, I can sense how fully agonizing staying will be.

But then I feel Ikuto's hand. Not sense it, but feel it. I'm not sitting huddled in the chair anymore. I'm lying on my back in the hospital bed, one again with my body.

Ikuto's crying and somewhere inside me I'm crying too, because I'm feeling things at last. I'm feeling not just the physical pain, but all that I have lost, and it's profound and catastrophic and will leave a crater in me that nothing will ever fill. But I'm also feeling all that I have in my life, which includes what I have lost, as well as the great unknown of what life might still bring me. And it's all too much. The feelings pile up, threatening to crack my chest wide open. The only way to survive them is to concentrate on Ikuto's hand. Grasping mine.

And suddenly I just _need _to hold his hand more than I've ever needed anything in this world. Not just be held by it, but hold it back. I aim every remaining ounce of energy into my right hand. I'm weak, and this is so hard. It's the hardest thing I will ever have to do. I summon all the love I have ever felt, I summon all the strength my grandparents and Rima and the nurses, and Nadeshiko have given me. I summon all the breath that Mama, Papa, and Ami would fill me with if they could. I summon all my own strength, focus it like a laser beam into the fingers and palm of my right hand. I picture my hand stroking Ami's hair, grasping a bow poised above my violin, interlaced with Ikuto's.

And then I squeeze.

I slump back, spent, unsure whether I just did what I did. Of what it means. If it registered. If it matters.

But then I feel Ikuto's grip tighten, so that the grasp of his hand feels like it's holding my entire body. Like it would lift me up right out of this bed. And then I hear a sharp intake of his breath followed by the sound of his voice. It's the first time today I can truly hear him.

"Amu?"

* * *

**Yuki- Ugh! Finally finished! That took me like two days to type up. I hope you liked it. c:**

**R&R?**


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